RACE TO JUDGMENT

Does Wanda Coleman really believe that there’s anyone in L.A. who’s unaware that racial stereotypes are a shameful and abhorrent part of Hollywood’s history--and that they continue today (“Guys, Dolls & Bit Players,” Three on the Town, Oct. 17)?

Why waste a perfectly good page telling us something we already know when it could have been used for something more enlightening--like, say, an ad for breakfast cereal? Or better yet, being a white male, I could write a lengthy essay protesting the fact that nearly all serial killers depicted on film and TV are of my gender and race.

All of this is to say nothing of the waste of Coleman’s valuable time and flair for language, which would be better employed in writing a screenplay including responsible depictions of all races. But why take the trouble to fix a problem when it’s so much easier to sit around and complain about it?

MICHAEL BABER, Studio City

*

Uh-oh! Trouble! Another column by Wanda Coleman. I start reading slowly, apprehensively, my mental antennae up for the usual signs of Political Correctness.

But something is different this Sunday. A column about movies? A simple piece on entertainment? A slight smile crosses my lips. Maybe I’ve been too hard on Coleman. Maybe she’s capable of love and laughter and happiness every once in a while.

And then, dammit, three-quarters of the way through the column, there it is--the black-and-white thing again. Coleman has sucker-punched me but good this time. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and my smile slowly sags. My stomach starts to rumble, and I throw the magazine down in disgust, startling the cat. I pick up the travel section and escape.

RICHARD ROSENTHAL, Long Beach